Charles H. Turpin

Last updated

Charles H. Turpin (died 1935) was a constable [1] filmmaker, theater owner, and judge in St. Louis, Missouri. [2] [3] In 1910, he became the first African American elected to city-wide office in St. Louis. [1] [4] A legal dispute contested his estate. [2]

He was born in Ohio and moved with his family to Mississippi for a few years as a child. [5] Tom Turpin, a musician and ragtime composer, was his brother. Saloon owner and businessman John L. Turpin, proprietor of the Silver Dollar Saloon in St. Louis was their father. [6]

In 1913 he arranged to build a 1-story theater building in St. Louis. [7] He served as a constable in St. Louis Fourth District. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch advised readers not to re-elect him as constable. [8]

In 1937, Time magazine referred to him as a "taffy-colored Republican". [9]

Turpin was also involved in filmmaking. [10] He produced short documentary films. [11]

Thomas Million John Turpin Jr. was his brother. [12] [13]

He owned the Booker T. Washington theater in St. Louis. [14] [3]

Charles Udell Turpin was his son. [9] He was noted as a successful Remington salesman. [15]

Booker T. Washington Theatre

The Booker T. Washington Theatre was preceded by John L. Turpin's Silver Dollar saloon and then the Rosebud Café from 1800 to 1906 where his brother performed. [6] It became an important venue in St. Louis. The theater building designed by J. M. Hirschtein succeeded and Airdome theater Turoin operated on the site for several years. [16]

The theater hosted vaudeville, motion pictures, and musical acts including Clara Smith, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters and Bill Robinson. A young Josephine Baker performed with her children outside the theater seeking notice. [17] [18] [19] It closed around 1930.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Joplin</span> American composer, music teacher, and pianist (1868–1917)

Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Dubbed the "King of Ragtime", he composed more than 40 ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became the genre's first and most influential hit, later being recognized as the quintessential rag. Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls and largely disdained the performance of ragtime as honky tonk music most common in saloons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Booker T. Washington</span> American educator, author, orator and adviser (1856–1915)

Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite. Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander's Ragtime Band</span> 1911 song composed by Irving Berlin

"Alexander's Ragtime Band" is a Tin Pan Alley song by American composer Irving Berlin released in 1911; it is often inaccurately cited as his first global hit. Despite its title, the song is a march as opposed to a rag and contains little syncopation. The song is a narrative sequel to Berlin's earlier 1910 composition "Alexander and His Clarinet". This earlier composition recounts the reconciliation between an African-American musician named Alexander Adams and his flame Eliza Johnson as well as highlights Alexander's innovative musical style. Berlin's friend Jack Alexander, a cornet-playing African-American bandleader, inspired the title character.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blanche Bruce</span> American senator and former slave

Blanche Kelso Bruce was born into slavery in Prince Edward County, Virginia, and went on to become a politician who represented Mississippi as a Republican in the United States Senate from 1875 to 1881. He was the first elected African-American senator to serve a full term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin O. Davis Sr.</span> United States Army general (1877-1970)

Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr. was a career officer in the United States Army. One of the few black officers in an era when American society was largely segregated, in 1940 he was promoted to brigadier general, the army's first African American general officer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Marshall (composer)</span> Musical artist

Arthur Owen Marshall was an American composer and performer of ragtime music from Missouri. He was a protege of famed ragtime composer Scott Joplin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Turpin</span>

Thomas Million John Turpin was an African American composer of ragtime music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soulard, St. Louis</span> Neighborhood of St. Louis in Missouri, United States

Soulard is a historic neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri. It is the home of Soulard Farmers Market, the oldest farmers' market west of the Mississippi River. Soulard is one of ten certified local historic districts in the city of St. Louis.

African Americans in Davenport, Iowa comprise the third-largest black community in Iowa, with a history that precedes the Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silent Parade</span> 1917 African-American protest in New York City

The Negro Silent Protest Parade, commonly known as the Silent Parade, was a silent march of about 10,000 African Americans along Fifth Avenue starting at 57th Street in New York City on July 28, 1917. The event was organized by the NAACP, church, and community leaders to protest violence directed towards African Americans, such as recent lynchings in Waco and Memphis. The parade was precipitated by the East St. Louis riots in May and July 1917 where at least 40 black people were killed by white mobs, in part touched off by a labor dispute where blacks were used for strike breaking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Griot Museum of Black History</span> Wax museum in St. Louis, Missouri

The Griot Museum of Black History is a wax museum in St. Louis, Missouri, founded in 1997. Originally named The Black World History Wax Museum, the organization changed its name to The Griot Museum of Black History in 2009. In some west African countries, the griot, is a historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet and/or musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition and is often seen as a societal leader who preserves and shares cultural traditions of a community. Likewise, the museum collects, preserves, and shares the stories, culture, and history of Black people with a focus on those with a regional connection to St. Louis.

Maceo Bruce Sheffield was a police detective and an actor in American films. He worked in Los Angeles as a policeman before acting and assisting in the production of films with African American casts. He was also a stuntman and pilot. He portrayed a swindler in Lucky Ghost as Dr. Brutus Blake in the sequel to Mr. Washington Goes to Town. He was the associate producer of both Lucky Ghost and Mr. Washington Goes to Town.

Rufus Logan was the editor of The Professional World, a newspaper for African Americans established in Columbia, Missouri in 1901. It was published until about 1921. Anderson Logan was his father.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Allen Loveless</span>

Henry Allen Loveless (1854–1921) was a businessman and community leader in Montgomery, Alabama. He helped found the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

Charlton "Charles" Hunt Tandy was an African American volunteer militia officer in Missouri, lawyer, newspaper publisher, state legislator-elect, public official, and civil rights activist.

Chestnut Valley was an African American section of St. Louis centered on Market Street, Targee Street, and Chestnut Street. It existed from the late 19th century serving steamship workers plying their trade on the Mississippi on into the 20th century. These were segregated eras. Chestnut Valley was a font of ragtime music development with Tom Turpin's Rosbud Café from 1900 to 1906 succeeding venues and later his brother Charles H. Turpin's Booker T. Washington Theatre. Mill Creek Valley, home to Scott Joplin and Josephine Baker, was adjacent. Union Station was nearby.

George L. Vaughn was a lawyer and judge in St. Louis, Missouri. As a lawyer, he was involved in a prominent civil rights case involving housing discrimination, most notably Shelley v. Kraemer, in which the eviction of an African American family from a white neighborhood was upheld by the Missouri Supreme Court but subsequently overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Citizen's Liberty League was a political organization established in Missouri to advance the interests of African Americans in the Republican Party. It addressed the policies of segregation, exclusion, and discrimination in the state. It was established in 1919 in Pythian Hall.

How Newtown Prepared is an American musical comedy staged in 1916 by the Tutt Brothers which toured the United States. The musical engaged with current military events of 1916 involving the all-black 10th Cavalry Regiment's involvement in the Pancho Villa Expedition of the Mexican Revolution in February 1916 and the Allied Powers and Central Powers in Turkey in 1916 during World War I.

References

  1. 1 2 "Liberator 19 November 1911 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". cdnc.ucr.edu.
  2. 1 2 "$125,000 Turpin Estate Settlement Not Settled". September 30, 1939. p. 2 – via newspapers.com.
  3. 1 2 Wright, John Aaron (July 25, 2002). Discovering African American St. Louis: A Guide to Historic Sites. Missouri History Museum. ISBN   9781883982454 – via Google Books.
  4. ↑ "St. Louis Historic Preservation". dynamic.stlouis-mo.gov.
  5. ↑ "The Messenger". Negro Universities Press. May 3, 1969 – via Google Books.
  6. 1 2 "History of Ragtime". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2021-07-25.
  7. ↑ "American Architect and Architecture". American Architect. May 3, 1913 – via Google Books.
  8. ↑ "unknown". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. October 31, 1914. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.{{cite news}}: Cite uses generic title (help)(subscription required)
  9. 1 2 "Education: Turpin's Trust". Time . April 26, 1937.
  10. ↑ Sampson, Henry T. (1995). Blacks in Black and White: A Source Book on Black Films. ISBN   9780810826052.
  11. ↑ Richards, Larry (September 17, 2015). African American Films Through 1959: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Filmography. McFarland. ISBN   9781476610528 – via Google Books.
  12. ↑ "St. Louis Historic Preservation". dynamic.stlouis-mo.gov.
  13. ↑ "Tom Turpin".
  14. ↑ Bauman, Thomas (May 30, 2014). The Pekin: The Rise and Fall of Chicago's First Black-Owned Theater. University of Illinois Press. ISBN   9780252096242 – via Google Books.
  15. ↑ "From Sales 'Associate' to CEO - the success of African American businessmen". July 1, 2021.
  16. ↑ "Booker T Washington Theater". St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 1913-03-16. p. 29. Retrieved 2021-07-25.
  17. ↑ "Booker T. Washington Theatre". Clio. Retrieved 2021-07-25.
  18. ↑ "Booker T." McCaughen and Burr. Retrieved 2021-07-25.
  19. ↑ "Josephine Baker". www.umsl.edu. Retrieved 2021-07-25.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.